One of the major triumphs of J.R.R. Tolkien's Trilogy is the sheer size and scope of the adventures narrated. Another - perhaps even greater - triumph of The Lord of the Rings is the way Tolkien gives those improbable heroes, the hobbits, such a large share in the "carrying on" of the adventures. Small, peaceful, devoted to creature comforts, hobbits nevertheless show themselves capable of great fortitude and endurance. In J.R.R. Tolkien Robley Evans describes the hidden (or inner) hobbit-strength as "commitment to a greater vision of life" than oneself.

...As Evans brings out, this victory of faith and affirmation over sterility and living-death seems particularly relevant in our own age of anti-heroes, in this time when we can readily identify with the small and apparently powerless.

In his emphasis on persistance and on the validity of commitment to one's imaginative vidion, Tolkien is a genuinely inspirational writer. Although the world of Middle-earth is strange to us and far away in time, we can all respond to Gandalf's words, "Let us go on with the journey we have begun!"

-- From the Foreword by Terence Malley

J.R.R. Tolkien is part of a series of critical appreciations called "Writers for the Seventies." Other books in this series include: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., by Peter J. Reed and Herman Hesse by Edwin F. Casebeer.